ORGANIZING AND SYNTHESIZING SOURCESSarah MorrisUT LibrariesSpring 2013

The Research Paper •How do you get from your initial assignment to your final paper?

•What steps do you take and what tasks do you do?

The Research Process

Organizing Sources

•Organizing your sources is a process called source synthesis

•Source synthesis means that you organize your sources and put them together in your paper in order to make an argument.

Synthesizing Sources

How do you synthesize sources?

•The Main Idea• Identifying the main ideas in your materials can help you organize your sources and use them effectively in your paper

•What your source is saying• Identifying key points• Look for abstracts and subject terms

•Pull it all together – take notes

Sample Research Topic• What effects do organic foods have on people’s nutrition and overall health?

• Look for information on where organic food is sold

Finding the Main Idea

Activity: The Match Game

Taking Notes: Tips and Tricks • Look for Main Ideas

• You can focus on article abstracts and subject terms in databases as starting points

• Try to locate the article’s thesis statement • Link resources together

• Look for common themes to connect resources• Create “bins” of terms and ideas to organize your

research into useful categories• Remember the paper topic!

• Make sure your resources relate back to that topic

Tools and Resources• Evernote – storage and

capture tool• https://evernote.com/

• Dropbox – cloud storage and sharing• https://www.dropbox.com/

• Bubble.us – mind mapping • https://bubbl.us/

• Mind42 – mind mapping• http://mind42.com/

• SquareLeaf – note taking• http://squareleaf.net/

Additional Resources• Course Guide: http://goo.gl/SPc35 • Ask a Librarian

• http://www.lib.utexas.edu/ask • Undergraduate Writing Center

• http://uwc.utexas.edu/